


alaska

by yoonbot (iverins)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 09:23:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12230070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iverins/pseuds/yoonbot
Summary: There's this dream Junhui's been having lately.





	alaska

**Author's Note:**

> the junhui-centric counterpart of [pools.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7943068)

There’s this dream Junhui’s been having lately.

It goes like this.

He’s in a desert. It’s hot and the horizon is a just a line, very, very far away. Junhui’s never been in a desert before, but he knows that this dream takes place in one, and he’s walking toward that line that’s supposed to be the horizon.

Sometimes, Junhui’s running. Sometimes, Junhui hears the wind pick up, and then he’s just stuck in a maelstrom of sand. Sometimes, in the most recent variation of this dream of his, Junhui’s forgotten what happens, and when he opens his eyes, there’s no horizon.

Junhui doesn’t know what this dream means. But it comes to him, and he chews on the eraser of his pencil as he writes down what he remembers whenever he’s shaken awake from it, trying to recall.

The heater mumbles. Wonwoo’s sleep-even breathing lulls beneath that. Junhui’s lamp scorches like the sun in that desert, in that dream.

Turns it off. And there. The desert.

_It goes like this._

 

 

 

 

Wonwoo’s the writer between the two of them.

Wonwoo wears these crooked circle and wire framed glasses that Junhui’s begged him to go back to the shop and get straightened out.

“No,” Wonwoo says the next time he asks. On the grounds that he’s too lazy and the shop that he bought them from is all the way back in Changwon, and Wonwoo never goes home unless it’s _Chuseok._ It’s December now.

Six days out of seven, Junhui hears the sound of Wonwoo’s typing before he sees him lounging on the couch they’d hauled up the stairs. Seventh day, Wonwoo’s drooling on his comforter. Junhui knows that you’re not supposed to interfere with how your friends live their lives, but sometimes he really wants to with Wonwoo.

Instead he asks, “What’cha writing?”

Every time: Wonwoo moves his headphones so one ear’s freed. It bunches up his hair onto one side, and he blinks at Junhui.

When he asks Junhui to repeat himself, Junhui just says _never mind._

 

 

  

 

_I’m alone, standing in a desert._

 

 

 

  

Wonwoo hates seafood, but he loves the sea.

There’s this sort of conversation he and Wonwoo always seem to drift back to, and it’s the subject of who’s the weird one. Wonwoo tells all their friends that it’s Junhui, and they’ll laugh and nod their heads, and Junhui always laughs with them.

But Wonwoo’s the one who laughs when Junhui tells him he reminds him of water.

“What do you mean?” he says. The bottle of water that Wonwoo was taking a sip from suddenly looks unnatural in his hands. “I’m like this?” He caps the bottle and shakes it in Junhui’s face.

Junhui frowns and swats it away. “Not just any water,” he insists. “It’s like –”

It’s like watching _Finding Nemo_ together a couple nights ago with the lights off on Wonwoo’s bottom bunk, Wonwoo’s knee that he told him to move five minutes ago still digging into his back, the smell of Wonwoo’s shampoo tickling his nose when Junhui comments about the movie.

“You remind me of that turtle guy,” he says when said character shows up on screen.

Wonwoo scrunches his nose before letting go of it. “You’re weird, Jun,” he replies. And then he laughs.

It’s like the time Mingyu drove them to the beach on the first day of winter break, and once Wonwoo got out of the car, he ran to the waves and got his jeans wet.

It’s like the way Wonwoo says, “I killed a spider today,” when Junhui blinks awake after falling asleep on the couch and can only hum in response. “It was in the bathtub, and lost a leg spinning its web.”

“I flushed it down the drain,” he says when Junhui closes his eyes again. “I feel sorry about it.”

It’s like the enormous glass tanks in the aquarium where Soonyoung works tinting Wonwoo’s face blue like they’re walking underwater, the light kissing the bridge of Wonwoo’s nose when he goes to rub off the marks he swears Junhui’s leaving behind by pressing his face close to the glass.

It’s like Junhui standing under the spray of the shower in that spider’s grave, his head leaning against the hard tiles, breathing hard _Jeon Wonwoo –_

It’s –

“It’s like?” Wonwoo cuts in. There’s the shudder of the pipes when Junhui starts up the water.

Junhui shakes his head. “Nothing.”

 

 

 

 

_It’s night, and it’s dark beside the moon that cuts a light into the sky. I don’t think I’m looking at it, but this is how everything starts._

_The wind sounds a lot like the waves of the sea._

 

 

 

 

Soonyoung was Wonwoo’s friend first, but Junhui doesn’t think that changes things.

Soonyoung talks like he swims in the glass tank where he and Wonwoo saw him dive into, waving at the kids poring against the tank, before kicking back up to the surface – moving his hands and nodding his head and telling stories at the pace of a comet hurtling toward Earth, ready to dent the surface and have people look at it years later, wondering. Soonyoung tells Junhui a lot of things about his life. Junhui only thinks it’s right to tell him things in return.

One day, Soonyoung looks at him, confused.

“I feel like we’re always talking,” he says when Junhui asks if something’s wrong. “But I still don’t know anything about you.”

There’s this dream that Junhui’s been having lately. He laughs and Soonyoung nudges him in the side. “I don’t get what you’re saying,” Junhui grins.

He’s in a desert. Soonyoung takes his phone out of his pocket, checking the notifications on his screen before putting it back. “You can’t play the foreigner card on me now!” he groans, flopping onto the floor. Junhui pokes him in the stomach.

He doesn’t know what this dream means.

In scribbled characters: _It goes like this._

 

 

 

 

_It’s dry but I’m not thirsty. I’m not hungry, either. I’m just standing there, and I can’t feel the sand that should be underneath my feet._

_People tell me_

(crossed out, rewritten once, crossed out again. rewritten again.)

_People tell me to tell them what’s wrong._

 

 

 

 

Junhui’s read Wonwoo’s work once.

Junhui’s not allowed to read what Wonwoo writes. Wonwoo shuts his laptop screen and leaves the apartment without a word the first few times Junhui tries to ambush him, tiptoe running before catching Wonwoo by the shoulders with a _gotcha!_

“Are you mad?” Junhui asks when Wonwoo comes back after class the next day, chewing the sandwich Junhui left for him on the kitchen counter as a peace offering slowly as if he’s testing it for poison.

Wonwoo picks at a piece of lettuce. “Don’t ever do that again,” is all he says.

It takes Junhui three times before Wonwoo snaps. “Stop fucking around, Jun!” he yells that last time.

Junhui doesn’t know what to do other than laugh. It’s a rather sad, pathetic sound. “Okay,” and he means it.

A long passage on the screen. Junhui can’t read _hangul_ that quickly, so all that stands out to him are two characters that he sees all the time.

_Joon Hwi._

Junhui thinks that’s when he started having this dream.

 

 

 

 

_The thing is nothing’s wrong. I’m full, and I’m not thirsty, and I’m not cold, though I imagine it’d be cold in the desert in the winter, at night._

_I don’t know why I feel like I’m missing something important._

 

 

 

 

Wonwoo has this other friend called Jihoon.

Most of Wonwoo’s friends have become Junhui’s friends. “Jihoon’s a little harder to get along with,” Wonwoo warns him before they meet.

“Nonsense,” Junhui starts. “Can he hate a face like this?” He points to himself from where they’re both brushing their teeth in the mirror and Wonwoo shakes his head.

“Don’t say I didn’t tell you,” Wonwoo shrugs, slouching off to change his shirt after he’s rinsed his mouth.

Junhui’s pretty sure Jihoon does hate him. Which is why he keeps shaking his leg under the table, a numbing feeling creeping from his foot to his throat, waiting for him in the coffee shop near their university.

Jihoon’s not a tall person. But Junhui feels impossibly small when he pulls out the chair across from him, scooting in with small scrapes before training his grimace onto Junhui.

“Hey,” Junhui starts weakly. Jihoon narrows his eyes.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know why we’re here,” Jihoon says, but he doesn’t look so much angry as sad.

Junhui sits on his hands. Underneath his thighs, they shake.

 

 

 

 

_There’s this feeling that I get sometimes when I’m awake and I feel it now, in the desert._

_It’s like I’ve been scooped out clean on the inside, and all that’s left is a part of me. I try to look for what’s gone missing, but when I check, everything’s there. But I still feel_

_I laugh when people ask me what’s wrong. There’s nothing more to me than meets the eye, I tell them. And I’m happy._

_But I still feel_

(lines skipped. turn to the next page.)

_There’s a wall._

 

 

 

 

Junhui thinks the bravest person he knows is Seokmin, who accidentally confessed his two-year-long crush to Jung Chaeyeon loudly in the cafeteria during rush hour, and was, albeit politely, rejected. He’d rubbed his back soothingly in the bathroom after while Seokmin cried and Soonyoung tried to cheer him up.

“I can’t believe she turned him down,” Junhui rambles to Wonwoo when they’re walking back to their apartment that afternoon. Wonwoo raises an eyebrow and Junhui sighs. “I know she’s popular but wasn’t the way Seokmin told her everything he liked about her romantic?”

Wonwoo doesn’t reply. Junhui’s shoes get wet with each step in the snow they cut across.

“Does that mean,” Wonwoo starts. His breath creates clouds. “That you want me to confess to you like that?”

Junhui steps in a particularly wet patch. He stops. Wonwoo turns back to look at him. “What.”

There’s this dream Junhui’s been having lately. Wonwoo walks back over to him. That’s Junhui’s red scarf he’s breathing into. It hides his lips when he says, “Wen Junhui,” the carefully practiced way Junhui taught him to.

It goes like this.

“I like you.”

He’s in a desert.

 

 

 

 

“Just tell him if you don’t like him,” Jihoon says. Junhui’s coffee’s long stopped steaming. “Or if you like him…”

Jihoon makes a pinched expression. More like the Jihoon Junhui’s used to seeing. “Just talk to the damn guy, Junhui. Is that so hard?”

Junhui swallows. The horizon is just a line, very, very far away.

Junhui’s never been in a desert before.

 

 

 

 

Jun. Jun. Jun, Jun, Jun.

Wonwoo’s pulled the scarf – Junhui’s scarf – away from his mouth to yell.

This time, Junhui runs.

 

 

 

 

_I can’t see over this wall. When I touch it, I know._

_I built this wall myself._

 

 

 

 

Wonwoo’s the writer between the two of them.

Junhui scratches down his dreams in a language Wonwoo can’t read so his words can have no weight.

 

 

 

 

_It goes like this._

_My mom sometimes asks me how school’s going. I tell her about my friends and my classes and the professors I don’t really like but think probably have reasons for being the way they are. Wonwoo’s fine, and he’s been eating healthier since we started sharing an apartment. Sure, he’s my best friend._

_I don’t tell her about how I feel._

_But I still feel_

_There’s these times when I’ll be going about my day and then I just feel. Empty, maybe. Like there’s something I want to say but when I want to say it, it doesn’t deserve to be said. And_

_Soonyoung once said that he felt like he didn’t know me. That’s the thing I’m just_

_Wonwoo told me he liked me. I want to tell him I like him back but when I close my eyes_

_I’m alone, standing in the desert. I’ve been alone enough times in my life to not be afraid._

_But I still feel_

 

 

 

 

Wonwoo’s drooling on his comforter when Junhui finally comes back. He doesn’t stir when Junhui closes the door, or when he carefully peels off the layers of winter clothes until he reaches his undershirt and boxers.

The mattress creaks when he climbs into Wonwoo’s bunk. And there, Wonwoo’s warmth against his back, Junhui realizes that the heater isn’t on.

He’s so, so tired.

Wonwoo flings an arm over his stomach in sleep. Junhui closes his eyes.

 

 

 

 

There’s this dream Junhui’s been having lately.

It goes like this.

He’s in a desert. It’s hot and the horizon is a just a line, very, very far away. Junhui’s never been in a desert before, but he knows that this dream takes place in one, and he’s walking toward that line that’s supposed to be the horizon.

“Jun?” Wonwoo mumbles, half-asleep. The sun’s cracked its way through the blinds, and the yolk is spilling like blood over their feet.

Junhui buries his face into his arms, trying to preserve the afterimage of the dream before it fades away, half-forgotten. He takes a deep breath.

“I had this dream.”

Wonwoo hums. It reminds Junhui of the Wonwoo that runs to the crashing waves of the sea, the Wonwoo that trails behind in the aquarium, observing the fish carefully, the Wonwoo that writes about him and the Wonwoo that turns over to face Junhui now, a question in his eyes.

 

 

 

 

“It goes like this –”


End file.
